


Star Wars: Never Tell Me The Odds

by Captain_Kiri_Storm



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brotherhood, Buried Alive, Clone Trooper Politics, Clone Troopers - Freeform, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force-Sensitive Han Solo, Force-Senstive Clone Troopers, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, Klick is BEYOND clueless unless it involves a gun, Luke Skywalker Being Luke Skywalker, Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, M/M, Mudslides, Rescue, Sith Nick Rostu, Sith Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-01-26 19:22:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 19,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12564440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captain_Kiri_Storm/pseuds/Captain_Kiri_Storm
Summary: Clone trooper GC-1000, aka "Klick", has lived through hell and back.First it was the Clone Wars and watching the only man who ever bothered being kind to him dying before his eyes. Then he watched his brothers be cut down by the very same Jedi Padawan he later shot in the back. Next it was the Empire and all the hell that put him through. Finally, he was given to the madman known as "Lord Shadowspawn" and experimented on. Best not to tell the new Jedi about that, though. He and his brothers are in a dangerous enough position as it is.If there's one thing he's learned from this world, it's to never tell him the odds. Because screw the universe, Klick is going to make his own odds and he's damn well going to be happy doing it!





	1. Buried Alive

There was nothing worse than being buried alive.

Mud, thick, black, foul smelling mud that seeped between your armor plates and mired you down. It was a death trap. He could feel it start to get on his skin and whatever evil ghost this place had was whispering in his ear, telling him to just let go. At this point Klick wasn't sure it was his own mind starting to betray him. He tried to scramble for the hasty Force bond he'd made with the blonde Jedi (the man had used his karking _name_ and talked to him and didn't mind that Klick was affection starved and he really wanted to be held and told that it was okay he was scared...!), but all he felt was a blazing agony. He jerked back. His helmet started caving in under the force of the dirt on top of him. He tried to struggle, but the filthy mud just held him down.

He was trapped. Helpless. Klick was going to die and there was nothing he could do about it. The air filters on his helmet were shit, typical Imperial quality, and they would only last for thirty minutes at the most. Tears filled his eyes as he thought of his brothers trapped with him. He tried to blink them away. Decker, Caliber, Steel, Oddball, ad all the others didn't deserve this. They didn't deserve to die like this. He forced himself to take shallow breaths. They were going to leave him. He didn't blame them. He was just another damn clone and it wasn't like they hadn't made a thousand of him a month. Klick didn't try touching the Force bond again. It was okay, he understood. Skywalker had other people to save, better things to do.

His lungs started to burn. Klick closed his eyes and tried to pull himself into his memories. The touches that were like his General's. The way Luke's eyes were blue, blue like the sky on this planet had been before Shadowspawn destroyed it. He couldn't tell Luke what he could do, he didn't dare. The Jedi would think he was a freak. Just like the rest of the Empire had. He thought of the soup Solo had made and the way he wanted to hit the man for not telling him that the food would burn his mouth. He had never had anything but ration bars before. To taste something with cayenne peppers in it for the first time was to be asking for trouble. Klick slowed his breathing. He allowed himself to dream about a life he could have lived and the hope he had had when he'd seen the green lightsaber.

It was okay that he would die dreaming. His dreams were all he had now, like the ghost of a kiss. The Jedi would have killed him had they known what he and Master Vhee had been doing behind the speeders at the Temple. It had felt good, though. The usually cold Jedi had softened then and Klick craved affection. He might have curled up with his brothers at night, but there were some things only a lover could give. This Jedi would have been different, he thought. Luke said he had light within him and that was how the Jedi knew he could trust Klick. For Klick, it was simple. Skywalker was the reason he hadn't given up in those long years he was here. The serums, the things they had given him and his brothers so they were still like young shinies. Klick never felt his age. Ever. He didn't look it. He looked young.

The Jedi on the secret HoloNews he'd watched had been so different from the warm man who shared a cup of soup and a blanket with him. That Jedi had been cold and this one was warm. This one laughed at the bad jokes he made and listened when he said that Shadowspawn could sever his spirit and his body.

So it was okay that he would die here. He could die with a smile on his face and the knowledge that he could have made his Jedi very happy. He'd learned from Master Vhee, of course, and it had been very useful when his brothers were hungry or needed better equipment. He could apply that to the blonde Jedi and smile as he writhed in pleasure from it. It was okay that Klick could die here. He'd given it a good run. He'd shown that he wasn't a defect. He was still a good boy. He could still follow a Jedi. Klick knew what Luke had promised him, that they would have seen Coruscant together and Klick could have been free. His lungs could have been on fire for all he cared.

"How the hell do you get these helmets off?!"

"Easy!" Something smashed the face plate and sweet air rushed into his lungs. Klick doubled over, coughing. The smuggler, Solo, was standing over him and holding a chunk of rebar. Klick looked at him. chest heaving. For a second, Solo looked like he was going to smash in his head with the rebar, but he moved. Klick struggled to his feet, trying to get away from the mud. Solo yanked him up and spun him around. "I don't know what sick fantasies your tank breds have, but lemme tell you something-- _Luke's mine_. You get it?"

Klick nodded. "My brothers. Where are they?"

Solo rolled his eyes. "We're still looking for two more of them." He still moved to support Klick, possibly because Fenn Shysa was watching them. Solo made him stumble and he fell to his knees, getting more of the mud on his hands. "Three of 'em are dead. Medics said those were called Boulder, Twitch, and Mauser? We're still looking for Caliber and Deep End. I don't know what it is with you and names."

Klick glared at him as he forced his battered legs to work. "You try naming yourself in a karking medical facility and you see how good you're doing." He closed his eyes for a second and felt for them. Deep End was still a shiny at heart. He might not have known enough... "Caliber's over here!" Klick yanked the rebar out of Solo's hands and started hacking at the earth. It was more to show Solo how strong he really was than he looked. He started, trying to get his brother out. He found Caliber's helmet and cracked it open. The younger clone was pale and sallow, but he took a deeper breath. He started coughing and struggling. Solo joined him and they dug Caliber out. Klick fought himself not to smash Solo in the head. He didn't like the man.

He couldn't feel anything for Deep End. Could barely bring himself to locate the body. Fenn Shysa and his men dug the dead clone out and Klick brushed his blonde hair out of his eyes. Deep End looked like he was sleeping. Klick brought his gaze back over to the battered bodies of his comrades. They were looking at the ground, still crusted in mud. Klick limped over, painfully aware of what was starting to feel like a fractured hip. But it was okay. He was still on the top side of the garden bed. Steel wrapped his arms around himself, whimpering softly. Deep End had been his little brother and now he was dead. Klick let the other clone mourn in peace. He needed to make sure they went with the right group and weren't parceled out like party favors.

"Klick!" Luke came skidding down the still muddy slope. "You're alive! Thank the gods, you're alive!"

"It took you long enough." Klick crossed his arms and gave him a half smile. He grimaced in pain, touching his battered hip. But he didn't care. He just wanted to be with his brothers and his Jedi. He could have that now. He could have all of that. "We're going with you, Master Skywalker. I trust a Jedi far more than I trust everyone else."

Luke nodded. "You're also an experienced soldier and we kinda need that on some other planets."

Klick fought off a wave of pain and darkness, but it was proving too much. Solo said something, but it was muffled and he was having a hard time hearing. He maybe thought that he was falling to the ground, but he only knew for sure when he saw Skywalker standing over him and begging him to _just hold on. Please. Help is coming. Klick, kriff damn you, you can't die! You're not allowed to die!_

And then...nothing.


	2. The Hard Way

Klick woke up in the _Falcon_ 's medical bay. He groaned softly, trying to get up. He ached all over, but most of it was in his hip. The very same hip that he had mostly likely broken and at the very least fractured. His head was pounding, mouth dry. It felt like Klick was coming off of a three day Freegar bourbon bender. Try saying _that_ ten times fast. Klick groaned and looked down. His entire left leg was encased in plaster. This meant that he wouldn't be walking for awhile and he groaned softly. Being useless was a death sentence with the Empire. It was also a death sentence in the GAR. He'd heard the horror stories about the seventy percent rule. If the clone had sustained more than seventy percent wounded body area, he was put down. The usable parts were recycled and the rest were tossed to the meat ships.

The Empire just put you down. For all their talk about efficiency, they were incredibly wasteful. Klick had watched as brothers like Martyr, Nico, Shiv, and Blaster were destroyed. They had been wounded in the Empire's service, yet the Empire didn't see them as humans. There were shelters for stray tookas and anoobas, but nothing to help a clone who had broken his legs or been struck with a Molotov cocktail. Klick did what he could, but he was just one man and a clone at that. He sighed and looked around, already bored out of his mind. The kid Nick Rostu had taught him how to read, so he would have dearly loved a book. Or even a data-pad with some good games on it. He loved Jedi Temple Run and could really kick some _shebs_ in it.

The next thing he knew, there was a droid touching him. Klick yelped and tried to get away. The metal hands were cold and he was warm and snug under all those blankets. The droid paused and waited, maybe for him to calm down. Klick eyed the thing with distaste. Yes, he did not like droids. They scared him. Those things were dead, but they acted like they were alive. They had no signature in the Force that he could feel, but they acted like they were alive. And now he knew why the Jedi had hated the Clankers so much. This thing was seriously unnerving him with the yellow bug eyes and the creepy mask he had on his face. Klick reached for a blaster, but he found nothing.

_Well, I'll just shove him away if he tries anything._

"I'm sorry for frightening you." The droid handed him a tray. Orange juice and sandwiches? Klick wasn't sure what that was about, but he was hungry and he started to eat. He had no idea what this droid was or what it wanted. The droid took a medical scanner and splayed it over his chest. Klick watched the blue lines. If this thing had a midi-chlorian counter, he was kriffed. Literally _and_ figuratively. He could count out getting with the cute Jedi Knight who had actually saved his life and count on going back to Kamino, where he would likely be vivisected. "I know some beings like you can get very nervous after coming out from under heavy sedation. That's what you needed, anyways. How long were you walking on that leg?"

"A few hours." Klick looked at the droid and slowly extended a hand. "GC-1000. I go by Klick, so please use it."

To his immense surprise, the droid shook his hand. "Pleased to meet you, Master Klick. I'm 2-1B, also know as Master's Luke personal medical droid. He requested that I be sent over here to monitor your recovery. Master Luke seems very concerned about you and he wanted to ask you about the blood type test. Is it true that most Jango Fett type clone troopers have an elevated midi-chlorian count?"

Klick blanched. They had already figured it out?! "No," he finally managed to say. "No, they don't. Otherwise the Jedi would have never agreed to use us like they did." It would have been too much like slavery, he often thought, and he figured that the Jedi had already been strained enough by using the clones in the first place. He didn't want to think that the Jedi had another choice. It was too much so he tried to think of other things. "I'm... special? Yeah, that's the word. I'm special." Special because he survived a cut rate version of Operation Wellspring...

2-1B didn't look all that convinced as he scanned Klick. "Your body shows signs of extreme malnutrition several years prior. It's very consistent with what happened to the Operation Wellspring clones. Now, there's no shame in what happened and I'm sure Master Luke won't mind."

"I saw my brothers die in front of me, okay?" Klick glared at the droid and wished he could just go back to sleep. He hated droids. Really and truly hated droids. He knew why Navy had gone postal all those years before and run off, too. Navy had known something bad was going to happen. He sighed a little bit and turned his head. "I don't like to talk about it, okay? But yes, Operation Wellspring, and I got shuttled off to Lord Shadowspawn along with half a dozen Starkillers, okay? Tell Master Luke not to worry, the Starkillers are all dead. They went nuts pretty quickly and started killing. I rather liked watching it, too. Made me feel like I was getting a little revenge on that _chakkar_."

"And I just booked you an appointment with a qualified mind healer." 2-1B closed his own data-pad with a snap.

Klick gaped at him. "You _what_?!"

"You're going to therapy." 2-1B had a little bit of a smug look on his face. "From my analysis of this conversation, you are suffering from severe mental trauma and possibly PTSD. It's for your own good." He started to trundle away, leaving a very pissed off Klick glaring at the droid. He flopped back on the hospital bed. Great. Just great. Crazy clones didn't live very long and it wasn't like they would toss a handful of pills at him and send him on his way. Clones did not talk about feelings, thank you very much. Clones talked about killing things and blowing stuff up. Or women. Women were always a safe topic, though Klick had always liked a male better than he liked a female. He groaned softly. The Empire thought _that_ was a mental disease, too.

This was just going to be fun. He just knew it.


	3. A Clone, A Jedi

Clones got bored easily. That was just a given. Clones needed to have something to do. Be it Pazacc, be it fighting with each other and calling it sparing, be it even reading a book even though clones were not allowed to learn how to read or write. Clones got _bored_. When clones got bored, they tended to tear stuff up. Klick was no different and he was trying to draw on his sheets with a permanent marker he had found in one of the drawers that he could reach. Having his leg in a cast was really going to kriff things up for him. He hurt, too. Whatever painkiller he had been given had almost worn off. Klick cursed softly and lay flat on his back. Where was that cursed medical droid when he was actually _needed_?

Right. He was off dealing with something that was more important than a clone with a broken hip. Klick groaned and flopped back as best as he could. On the plus side, he was starting to do better with his drawing skills. Sketch would have been proud. Of they hadn't finally put him down because of his twisted leg... The clone groaned softly and rubbed his cropped black hair. Years of living inside his armor had bleached his once tawny skin. He was sickly pale and he felt it, too. Not that Lord Shadowspawn had cared. He had just wanted his throwaway clones and didn't care if they had what they needed or not. The Starkiller clones, the poor wretches, had been dead within a week. That series had never been stable to start with. Cloning a _Force user_? What _di'kut_ had **that** bright idea?!

Klick was just about to try and force himself out of the bed, busted hip be _damned_ , when a mop of bright blonde hair came into the room. Klick perked up some. Was it his Jedi? It had been a long time since he had a Jedi and clones were nothing if not eager to please. There was a time when Klick would have preened that he could satisfy all but a few of Lord Shadowspawn's officers, but this wasn't it. The Jedi wanted something pure, something made of Light. Klick was the opposite. He had slept around quite a bit and he had touched a bit of the Dark. Never actually used it like a Sith or a Jedi, but he had messed with it. To fully touch the Force would have been to draw unwanted attention to himself.

"2-1B said that you had a really weird midi-chlorian count," Luke said. He sat beside Klick on the bed, a little bit concerned. "Is that true or not? I don't know a thing about Operation Wellspring. I only heard about it today from 2-1B. He said that you had survived that and that made you a hero..."

He closed his eyes some. He could lie about this. What Shadowspawn had done to him wasn't even Operation Wellspring. He had literally dosed Klick full of chemicals and let him either fight ir abd make it or not make it and die. Klick didn't want to look at his Jedi as he talked. "Operation Wellspring was a way to get cheap Inquisitors. All they had to do was take an ARC or something like that, one of the higher classes, and pump him full of chemicals and midi-chlorians. Twenty five percent of the ARCs made it, less than ten percent of the normals made it, half of the Shadow Hunters made it, and most of the Death Troopers made it. It's hell, okay? I'm pretty damn lucky to be alive. A lot... a lot of my brothers can't say that."

Luke took his hand, swallowing some. "That's horrible, Klick..." The blonde man trailed off, not sure if he could say anything more to that. Klick watched him with weary eyes. He could tell that Luke would be a good Master. He wasn't cruel, wasn't going to hurt his clones just to hear them scream. Luke shuddered some. "That's really, really bad, okay? I don't know how to tell you how bad that is..."

_It's even worse when it's a cut rate version. He can't know that I'm a Shadow Hunter._

"I've lived through worse," Klick lied. He bowed his head some, not sure how to process that the Jedi was holding his hand. Not forcing a kiss on him, not trying to do anything that he wouldn't want to do. Klick offered him a half smile and curled up under the blankets. If Luke noticed all the drawings on the blankets, he said nothing. Klick had a feeling that this ship belonged to the pirate and he longed to tell Luke about what Solo had done on this planet. Shadowspan had used that smuggler several times. Solo liked both males and females and it was rumored that he had slept with Boba Fett once. "Trust me, Skywalker. I lived through Kamino and I lived through Order 66."

"What can you do with the Force?" Luke's blue eyes were so wide and so innocent. He didn't look like a war hardened Jedi. He didn't have the war weary look that Ahsoka Tano had had. She had been half his age and she had lead men into battle.

Klick shrugged. "I used it for sniping. When I was taking those pot shots at your men, I meant to miss. If I wanted to hit you, I could rely on the Force to make sure that I didn't miss. Or I used it to tell if someone was lying. My brothers sometimes made me guess who was calling on the comm. I'm not a Jedi, Skywalker. I'm a clone. Clones serve the Jedi. They can't _be_ Jedi."

"Whoever told you that was wrong," Luke hissed. His eyes seemed to draw Klick in, reminding him of what he was dealing with here. "I think you can be a Jedi. We just have to train you and get you a lightsaber, that's all."

The older clone laughed and laid back, enjoying the energy and determination that Luke had. A clone could never be a Jedi...right?


	4. And Never the Two Shall Meet

Clones served Jedi. They couldn't _be_ a Jedi. If a clone had the Force, then that clone needed to be put down. That meant that Klick needed to be put down because he had the Force, but he couldn't argue with that. Besides, what good was he? The clone grumbled some as he adjusted his position. His entire hip ached and he needed to use the toilet. A quick jaunt with his right hand explained that nope, he did not have a catheter. That was both a blessing and a curse. It was a blessing that he wouldn't be pissing blood for a week. It was a curse because he had to get up to pee. He cursed under his breath as he forced himself out of the bed. The one time Klick put weight on his bad leg, he screamed from the agony of it.

So he needed a crutch. Or something that could be used as a crutch in a pinch.

Klick looked around. He didn't see anything, though, and touched the Force. Luke knew he had it. He might as well use it. It felt very strange, opening up yourself to a sort of cosmic power. Klick always felt like he was being bathed in warmth unless he was angry and then it was like being doused in cold mud. He grimaced some and tried to let the alien sensations tell him how to walk. It... felt strange. He'd take a sort of dragging step, but the Force took the pain in his leg. It was still there and something told Klick he'd be sore in the morning. Klick took a bit of a breath, though, and he slowly worked his way across the room. Getting to the toilet was much easier. However, his leg forced him to sit. _That_ was humiliating, by the way.

"What are you doing up?" Boots walked across the room and Klick froze. But a face that mirrored his own met his and keen hazel eyes searched his face. Klick relaxed some to see one of his brothers and just waved the man off. If he had used the toilet after he got shot by a Seppie droid, he would understand. Brothers who had been shot in the _shebs_ still needed to use the toilet. "Luke is going to have my hide for bedding if you hurt yourself. And I mean it, because I might have married his sister and pissed him off some."

"Luke doesn't get angry, though," Klick protested. He wiped himself off, flushed, and limped back to bed. He wasn't all that put out by the audience. Shadowspawn had seen him naked several times and even used him for pleasure. It was likely that he didn't know just how well the experiment had worked. Shadow Hunters were good at hiding. That was how so many of them had survived after the Jedi Purge. Klick looked away some. What would Luke do if he knew that Klick had killed several Jedi? Would he want to give him a lightsaber then? "Trust me, I can tell when they get angry. Or if they get angry. Sometimes they have that look in their eyes, you know. The look that says you can't trust them."

The man rolled his eyes some. "Luke doesn't get angry. He gets disappointed and that makes you hurt."

Klick sat back on the bed and groaned some. "So what brings you here? I've faced down battle droids, horny Jedi, angry beasts, and an insane Sith. I don't need a babe sitter." Then again, it was the thought that counts. His Jedi cared about him enough to send him company. That was good enough. That meant that Luke might actually keep his promise to train Klick as a Jedi. Klick smiled some and wondered how well his Jedi was going to take it when the clone outpaced him. Did Luke know how old Klick was? Yes, Klick had been created near the end of the Clone Wars, but he had a few years on Luke. If not a decade. He groaned some and flopped back. Klick was too old for Luke. That just sucked, didn't it?

"Leia thought that you needed the company." The man sat there and crossed his arms. "You are Klick, right?"

"Depends on who's asking." Klick gave him a jaunty smile and waved some. He liked being sarcastic. It was fun and he highly doubted that Luke or this clone were going to beat him for it.

The man rolled his eyes. "Boba Fett."

"And that's supposed to mean something?" Klick asked. Because it didn't. It honestly didn't. He shrugged someone and watched Boba with sharp eyes. The last thing he needed was to get in a fight with one of his brothers.

Boba rolled his eyes again and dropped a copy of _The Jedi Path_ in his lap. "I found this in the belly of a Danang freighter. The guy didn't know what he had and sold this to me for three credits. You might like it--the kid's been going on and on about how he's going to train you as a Jedi as soon as that hip of yours heals."

"Thanks..." Klick took the book and opened it up to page one. It was heavily marked in, but he could feel the crackle of power in it's old pages. He had a good feeling about this tome.


	5. First Lessons

The book actually did help to relieve the boredom. Klick needed something to do. So he curled up as best he could and started to read. It would help him out more than anything to have something to do. He bit his bottom lip as he read, taking in the various things. There was so much information... All about how to meditate and use the Force. Klick held the book like he was made out of solid gold, not an old tome bound in cardboard that had been written in by someone named Qui-Gon Jinn. This man liked to put his opinions on _everything_! Klick had no idea who he was, but it was starting to annoy him. His ink had smeared all over the pages and into some of the words. Klick huffed a small sigh. He needed to deal with this. Or just figure out what the notes were.

He started going over a passage describing a game called "smashball". Qui-Gon used it to teach young padawans how to use the Force. As far as Klick could tell, it was some sort of game that involved a stick and a bright yellow ball. So it all sounded completely stupid to him. He sighed a little bit. This was not going to be fun, if he ever tried it. He put the book down and looked over at some of the pens. Klick smiled a little bit and focused on them. He could feel the Force flowing over him, like a stream of water, and he asked it to grab one of the pens. He bit his bottom lip. The pen started to rise up from the stack on the desk. It wobbled some, but it flew over to him and smacked him in the head.

"Hey!" Maybe it was stupid, but that hurt! Klick cursed under his breath some and tried to get up. His hip stabbed him again, though, and he flopped back down. The leg hurt. He wasn't going to be able to get up after all, then. He sighed a little bit. This sucked. Big time. There wasn't much that Klick could do, though. His hip was broken. He couldn't magically heal a broken hip! He could just barely use the Force to help him shoot and to smack himself in the head with a pen. Now there was a nice sized red spot on his head. He sighed a little bit. This just sucked. There was a reason why clones could never use the Force: they just weren't cut out for it. Klick was a _clone_. He was designed to fight and obey orders, not run around with a laser sword.

Klick glared at it and rubbed his chin again. He needed something to do and meditation wasn't going to do it for him. He just needed something to do. Like a datapad. Temple Run would be amazing right now. Or one of those other mindless games. His excellent reflexes made those games almost pitifully easy. Clones tended to memorize things. That took all the fun out of those jump scare games. Klick knew exactly where the bad guys hung out and when. He looked around some. There wasn't that much to do in the medical bay and Luke wasn't around him. Klick didn't blame him. Hanging out with clones wasn't something that the Jedi did. Even during the Clone Wars. The two never met unless something needed to be done.

Klick had watched a squad of clones be sent up a hill. So many clones had been shredded by that blasterfire, but they had taken that fort. Clones did things like that. They were just that strong, just that brave.

Someone flipped the light on and Klick cursed. He tried to shy away from the light, but a shock of blonde hair brightened him visibly. It looked like Luke Skywalker and his good friend Nick. Nick Rostu had been the bane of Klick's existence until Luke showed up. Klick was more than willing to put up with the annoying Korun if he got to talk to his friend. Luke dropped on the bed beside him.

"Do you like the book?" Luke asked. The Jedi messed with his head some and Klick fought the urge to hum in approval. He rather liked the Jedi. "Boba found it on some ship and bought it. I was going to use it to train padawans, but you're the first Force sensitive I've been able to find."

"Rostu has the Force." Klick pulled himself up as best he could and wished he was just a little cleaner. He really needed a shower. His hip, though, kept him from doing much of anything. So he sighed a little bit and hoped that he wasn't that nasty. "And he used to be a Jedi. I think he left during the Clone Wars, though. That was what he told me. Give that guy some Corellian teal and he'll tell you _anything_."

"So I don't have a stomach made of scrap iron," Rostu retorted. "I had no idea you could use the Force! Could all clones do that?!"

"Operation Wellspring." Klick didn't explain it much more. It was so much easier to lie about than it was to do anything else. He'd been turned by Lord Shadowspawn. he wasn't going any deeper in it than that. "The Empire did it. I think they needed more Inquisitors and it was easier turn a few clones than it was to raise children. Clones were pretty useless in the Empire, you know."

Luke nodded some and took his hand. "I want to train you, Klick. We can do this. I _know_ we can. If I can save Darth Vader, I can teach a clone how to use the Force. After all, how hard can it be? We have that old book of yours and I think Boba knows more than he's telling."

Rostu snorted. "You know that. You have no idea what he's hiding up in that head of his."

"Probably nothing I want to see," Luke muttered. He sighed a little bit and rubbed his face. "Okay then. We need to get you ready for training. I'm sure we can figure out something to do when you're in here. You've gotta be bored!"

Klick nodded. He risked it and reached up, softly kissing Luke on the cheek. Klick held him close. "I would love that," he murmured softly.

"And you two can get a room!" Rostu jumped off the bed. "Luke, have fun with your new padawan!"

Klick flashed him a quick smile and kissed Luke again.


	6. Sessions in the Force

So it turned out that the Force was mostly a mental thing and you could fool yourself into thinking that you didn't have it. That was one of the ways so many Jedi not in the Temple proper had been able to hide from the Empire. And by "so many", he really meant a few hundred. Only a grain of sand when you looked at the galaxy as a whole, but Force users were pretty strong. They could do quite a bit of damage. The last thing any smart person wanted to do was get in a fight with them if they could help it. Klick respected that. As a clone trooper, he understood full well why it was a bad idea to get in the habit of fighting with your betters. You could get killed or beaten pretty badly if you were a clone. He could only imagine it'd be that much worse if you were going to take on a Jedi.

That was why you didn't take on a half crazy space monk with a laser sword. It just wasn't going to go well for you.

Luke sat beside Klick, actually keeping his calm. Today they were trying to make a Force bond. Or, rather, Luke was. Klick was still trying to get used to his budding powers and not be completely terrified every time he made something come flying at him through the Force. It just wasn't a good idea, that. The last time he'd done that. Klick had freaked out and accidentally spilled an entire tray of stew. Really good stew, too. Klick wasn't used to getting much in the way of food and what food he _did_ get was usually ration bars. So he was very happy to eat a mouthful of stew from the ground and just moan at the flavors he'd missed. Food was food. What else could he say?

On a whim, Klick started hovering Luke's thermos of peach tea. It actually help him focus, using the Force. He bit his bottom lip some as he worked, trying to keep it almost perfectly level and his eyes straight on the bright blue metal. He gritted his teeth some, trying to ignore the probing on the edges of his mind. This was the last thing he needed to be dealing with right now. Couldn't Luke see that he was busy? He had to learn how to use the Force before he could bond anyone with it...right? Wasn't that the way it was supposed to work? That was the way it worked in all those holo-vids he liked watching. With a soft sigh, Klick set the thermos down and allowed the gentle fingers to brush inside. She shivered some in pleasure, the gentle touches feeling nothing like the agony Shadowspawn had caused him.

' _This doesn't hurt me. I don't think you're doing it right._ ' Klick touched the shimmering strands of their bond carefully, trying to understand how the crystalline threads tied them together. Luke was like a ball of pure light. His...was different. Flickering light. Like fire, he thought. Not like the shimmering constant that Luke was. ' _Why am I fire and you're...you?_ '

Luke laughed a little bit and the feeling warmed Klick to the very core. He looked over at himself and realized that he was looking at himself from all angles. He saw the dark skin and the rough, dark hair that he had. The little scar that touched his nose. The hazel of his eyes and the way his lashes were thick and dark compared ro Luke's. Luke looked like an angel, a blonde creature that shone with an inner light. If he squinted, Klick thought that he might get to see the wings such a creature had. Luke touched his shoulder some. ' _It's not supposed to hurt, Klick. It's supposed to feel....I'm not sure. Ben didn't get to do this with me, so I'm going through this just as blind as you are_.'

' _Shadowspawn made it hurt_.' Klick tried to keep the backwash of fear and pain from tainting whatever they were doing, but it was too strong and he was forced to allow it. To his surprise, Luke didn't hit him or curse him for allowing the Dark to taint them. All he did was touch Klick and wash him over with something that just felt...wonderful. Warm. Like it went deep inside of him and warmed him up. Klick allowed himself to smile some as he felt it. He'd never felt this good before. Never felt this warm, never felt this free. It was something that he could never understand, he realized, why a great Jedi like Luke Skywalker would want _him_. Luke could have anyone that he wanted, and he was choosing _Klick_.

' _It's not supposed to hurt you_ ,' Luke quietly said. He turned some and didn't want to look at him, Klick feared. But then he saw the Luke was crying. Was he sad for Klick?

Klick reached over and held him. ' _It's okay_ ,' he softly said. The clone trooper let the Force ring with his words and he simply stroked the other man some. What else could he say? There was a man here who cared about him. Luke didn't want to see him hurt or destroyed. He was a good man, the best man that Klick had ever known. Klick tried not to think of what he had done on that day, so very long ago. It would only serve to hurt him. And this man was no Jedi book keeper. He was a strong man, a brave man. A man worthy to carry the mantel of "Jedi Knight."

Luke broke back from them and hugged Klick close. "It's gonna be alright," he whispered. Klick nodded, hoping he could believe the Jedi. Sure, he could feel the love and acceptance coming across the bond, but he was still wary. He'd been hurt far too many times in his life.

"I hope so," Klick whispered. He tried not to put any weight on his busted hip, but that was easier said than done. The clone trooper looked down some and gripped the sheets. "I really hope so."


	7. Dral O'r Haar Dha

There wasn't much one could do with a broken hip and Klick was slowly but steadily running out of options. You could only play so many games of Peggle and Jedi Temple Run before you got bored. Reading was no fun if you squinted at it all the time and he could hardly get up to do anything. Sure, Klick loved his brothers. They were part of the reason why Klick hadn't committed suicide by Sith lord. But there were only so many stories about Caliber kriffing the pilots that Klick could take. Yes, he was a man. And yes, he had needs. Bit that didn't mean that he wanted to hear all about Caliber's conquests. Especially not the pilot Kes Dameron, or whatever he was called. There were some things that Klick just did not need to know.

Who Caliber was kriffing was one of those things. The thing was that Klick wanted was to give Luke the wrong idea. Yes, he had slept around in the past and some of that had been by choice. But now? Now he was trying to turn over a clean slate so that Luke could see how good he was.

Klick could be good, Klick _knew_ he could be good. He had been good for so many others beyond this Master. Klick sighed some and hunched over. He touched the Force bond a little bit and tried to play with it. Who in their right mind would bond with a clone trooper? They were all copies of the same man and it wasn't like you couldn't ever make a new one when the old one wore out. That had been what happened to Dogma. He'd made pleasure for Krell until he was destroyed. Klick flopped back as best he could and touched his leg. They said he had a few weeks until he could walk again, but he'd always limp. Klick didn't mind. He just wanted to show how good he was for Luke. He didn't know how, but he would.

Luke came rushing into the room, horror across his features. Klick jerked up some. He couldn't explain what he felt through the bond, the outright pain and terror that was sparking now and starting to scare him. Klick scrambled up as best he could. He might have sucked with the Force, but he was going to defend Luke tooth and nail. The dark haired man gritted his teeth. He hadn't heard blasterfire and the alarm klaxons hadn't wailed. So what was going on? Klick didn't like it, whatever it was, and he needed to know what was going on. Luke drew close to him, nervous. Klick watched him with frightened hazel eyes. What was going to happen to him? Was he going to be put down? What about his brothers? What would happen to them if he wasn't around to protect them?

"Han said you killed Jedi." The young Jedi gave him a broken look as he flopped down. Klick's heart broke for the younger man. They never understood. They never understood what it was like to feel like you were watching your body on autopilot. Like you weren't holding the reins. They would never know that. Klick didn't even know how to begin to try. Luke looked over at him with tired blue eyes. "Is it true or is Han telling me a tall tale? I know he doesn't like clones, so... so I don't know. That's why I wanted to ask you. Because you know."

Klick could feel the subtext. _Please tell me that you didn't_ , that was what Luke was trying to say. The thing was... yeah, Klick had killed Jedi. He had killed Jedi for Lord Vader, for the Empire, and for Lord Shadowspawn. There wasn't anything he could say or do that would keep him from having killed a Jedi.

"I did," he softly admitted. Klick took Luke's hand, trying to keep his voice steady. "It... It's hard to explain. Like I was possessed, but possessed by a Sith that could splinter himself into a thousand different bodies. Like... Like I was just a droid." He tried to repress the memories of his training, of all the things that had been done to him. All of the people he had killed. The way he'd watched Alpha-17 try to save a batch of cadets, only to be taken and beaten for his insolence. Luke didn't need to know that. Klick worried the sheet some. "I don't know what happened or why. All I know is that I was out of bed after hours and there was a lot of fighting. Plenty of people dying in front of me. I thought that the Temple had been attacked and we were clearing the bad guys. No one thought enough to ask who we were fighting.

"I think we were too scared too. Clones are bred to obey orders, not question them. And there was this man.. like darkness incarnate, leading the way. We sensed that we couldn't tell him no. He killed a clone just for asking what time it was. Just cut the man's head off. We don't know why." Klick closed his eyes. He could still remember the man's cries. _Fox_. His name was Fox and he had been a good man. "Later, with the Empire... if you didn't obey, being whipped was seen as a mercy. They locked clones in solitary, did medical experiments on them. Ran us in their stormtrooper units. Made us train cadets on Kamino and sent them out where they would die. Me? I'm a Shadow Hunter. I worked with Lord Vader to make sure that there weren't any Jedi left."

He reached up and touched Luke's face. "I didn't have a choice, _cyar'ika_." Shadow Hunters were the top of the top, the cream of the crop when it came to clones. Klick had seen so much action... "And with Shadowspawn, I had to stay alive so I could fight beside my brothers. Luke... you were my _dral o'r haar dha_."

"I don't speak Mando'a," Luke mumbled. He looked away some.

Klick didn't translate the first one because he didn't want to get in any more trouble than he already did. "You were my light in the darkness." He traced the blonde hair with a shaking hand, trying to put it into words. "We... we smuggled holos of you. Of the Jedi. Of all the things that we used to have but now we didn't. And you... you changed me. I know it was a crappy holo, done without your permission, but... I guess it made me hope again." Klick looked down, frustrated. "I had lived without hope for so long. And then, when I saw a Jedi... one that had kindness in his eyes instead of anger or hate... I don't know what happened. But you... you saved me, Luke. You saved _all_ of us."

Luke jerked his head back some, concern written across his face. "I'm not a hero, Klick. Ask Nick or Aeona. I got a lot of people killed on Mindor. _Good people_. I'm not the hero you think I am."

The clone shook his head some. "Does it matter? You were the only hero we had. So when we saw you... we knew. We knew that we were going to get out of it then. We knew that we could rescue our brothers, no matter what horrible things Shadowspawn did to them."

The blonde Jedi drew back some. "Klick, I need a little time to think, okay? I need to process everything that you've just told me. It's... a lot and I need to... I need to figure out where I stand on this, okay? I think I could bring one of your brothers if you would like to talk to him."

"Which one?" Klick tried not to sound too hopeful. It had been years since he'd gotten to talk with Ace, Bek, Crazy Legs, or Sten. He missed them so much... But they were worth it. They were worth all of the pain and suffering that he had been through. Klick would go through that torture a thousand times over if it meant that he could save his brothers.

"He calls himself Sten." Luke forced a smile and slipped away. "I'll go send for him. You... you be safe, okay?"

Klick nodded and relaxed. He just wanted to hold his little brother again.


	8. Sten

Sten had been taken away from him soon after the Empire took over. The Empire had wanted to try making more Force users, but they hadn't wanted to go to the bother of turning Jedi or raising children. And so, they took the clones from units like the Devil Dogs and the Space Marines. Clones that they thought were tough and would survive the hell that came with the process. It was called Operation Wellspring. Klick hadn't even gotten the actual version of Operation Wellspring. As a Shadow Hunter, Klick was supposed to be strong enough to survive that. He was a clone who was supposed to be strong enough to take just about anything. When the human stormtropers had been killed with radiation sickness after chasing a Jedi through an old droid factory, Klick had been fine.

He just hoped that Luke never talked to Jax Pavan. Or talked to Laranth Tarak. There might have been a reason why Klick had so much scarring on his body. Let's just say that he had gotten on the wrong side of a group of Grey Paladins. As much as Klick was pained to admit it, he had lost that fight by a large margin.

Klick picked himself up from the pillow as best he could and moved the blankets around until Sten had a place to snuggle. Clone troopers tended to be touch starved and Sten was no exception. Klick needed to ask him about Jark, Fixer, Blunt, and Deadeye, but he feared what had happened to those good men. Ether theu were alive and free or they were dead. The last thing Klick needed to do was hurt his brother. He sighed a little bit, refusing to touch the Force bond he had with Luke. He didn't need to anger the Jedi any more than he already did. Training a clone trooper as a Jedi was so unheard of that of that it was almost absurd. Klick didn't know what he would do if Luke decided that he was actually going to train him.

Sten slipped into the room. He looked like a ghost of his former self, his body thin and shaking. He almost flew across the room and buried himself in Klick's arms. Klick just held his brother, rocking him and stroking his hair. He loved his little brother. He loved Sten and he never wanted to let the other man go. Not even for Luke. Sten murmured something and pressed his head into the crook of Klick's neck. Klick just held him, letting him curl up close. He had no idea where they had found Sten. Sten hadn't been on Mindor. He must have been far away and they had just found him. Klick whispered to him in _Mando'a_ , just stroking his hair and showing him how much he was loved.

" _Ori'vod_ ," Sten whispered. He looked up some, his eyes red from the crying. Klick stroked his hair a little bit more. He wasn't going to let him go, just going to hold him until he was feeling a little bit better. "They hurt me. They really hurt me. I had a stupid chip in my head that was worse than the one from Kamino. I... I don't know what I'm supposed to do..."

"Just hold on," Klick whispered back. "Just hold on to me and stay close. I'll keep you warm." He closed his eyes some and let him curl up in his lap. He loved his little brother. He regretted every time he'd been forced to leave him. The Empire hadn't cared about brothers. They had just yanked brothers apart and not even cared if the brothers never saw each other again. Klick had lost so many brothers like that. He'd been forced to leave Ace and Bek and Sten and Crazy Legs and all the others. Klick had no idea what he was supposed to do. He'd lost so many of his brothers. One of them had died in his arms. Another had died from what Shadowspawn had done to him. And yet... yet, he had Luke now. He had a few of his brothers back. Maybe things would get better.

Maybe. Klick could hope. Sometimes, hoping was all you could do.

"Thank you," Sten murmured. He sighed some and curled up close. "I... I have the Force now. Lord Vader sent me away and I wound up at Doctor Aphra's lab. I don't know what she did to me, only that it really hurt." He shuddered some and Klick saw the telltale knotted scars on his wrists. He touched his own scars. If anything, his looked worse. Shadowspawn had gone the cheap route and he had paid for it. Klick wrapped his brother up and buried his nose in the dark hair. "I don't wanna be here. Why don't they just let me die?"

"Because I would be very sad," Klick replied. He kissed his head and allowed the Devil Dog to curl up almost on his check. The clone was much too thin. Had he been imprisoned in clone jail? Had he been on Kamino? Klick had no way of knowing short of asking and he wasn't going to hurt his brother that way. So he just kissed him again and allowed him to curl up like that. "I stayed alive for my brothers. I think you can do the same for us. You could be like me when I train with Luke Skywalker. He already agreed to train me like I was a Jedi." He smiled a little bit and pressed the other man close to him. Klick really did like Luke. He hoped that the man would actually train him. And to think that he had _actually kissed a Jedi_...

Mace Windu was turning in his grave. And that was okay, because Klick hated the old man.

"I'm not as strong as you are."

"I'm not strong at all," Klick softly said. He just kept the other man close and allowed him to snuggle up. He loved the younger clone. There would have been anything he would have done to keep his brother safe. He sighed a little bit and pressed him close. What else was he supposed to do? He loved his little brother and never wanted him to go away. So he just kept the other man close and stroked his hair. Klick allowed himself a small smile. It was going to be okay, he was sure of it. He had his little brother now. He could rest easy at night, knowing that his little brother would be safe and sound. And that... that was all that mattered.

Klick brushed another kiss over his brother's head and held him as he went to sleep.


	9. Talking Things Over

As much as Klick loved having Sten back, he needed his Jedi, too. It had been a long time since he'd had anyone who really cared about him and losing that was hard. He could hardly remember the last person who cared about him who wasn't a brother. Had Master Vhee cared about him? Had he wanted anything more from him than just a little bit of kriffing but was too afraid to ask it? What about the padawan he had all but adopted, the one who had given him his name? What had Caleb thought of him? Had they loved him? Had they wanted him around? Or had he just been another slave for them, another clone trooper who was made to die in a war that he didn't want to fight? That was what Gunner had been. Just another slave to the Empire.

He sighed a little bit as the human medic tried to help him up. Klick could really go on and on about how much he hated having to do physical therapy, but no one wanted to hear a clone complain about things. They were wasting the money on getting him back to health, not just killing him. He needed to be grateful for that. Not just another ugly acting clone who was finally put down because no one could manage him. Klick gritted his teeth as he was forced to work the sore and aching muscle. They _would_ get this done, he knew. He would get his hip back and he could either train as a Jedi or he could serve one like he was supposed to. He did the exercises that he was supposed to do and he almost teared up when he thought of his old medic.

_Force, but it's been **years** since I thought of Starburst..._

The medic looked up some, concern in his green eyes. "Are you okay?" The Twi'lek straightened up and glanced around at the waiting figure of Sten. AS much as Klick loved his _vod'ika_ , he wanted to endure this torture alone. But he'd been without his brother for many years now, so he figured that he should just be happy that he had the younger clone with him rather than wondering where he was in this cruel galaxy of theirs. "We can take a break if you want. I'm not here to push you so hard that you hurt yourself. This is just so you get some mobility back to that leg of yours."

Klick shook his head. "One of my brothers was like you. His name was Starburst."

"Cool." The Twi'lek offered him a bottle of water and Klick took it. Years of working for Lord Shadowspawn had taught him to take what water when he could get it. That water could mean the difference between him living or him dying, so he was going to drink. He guzzled the water quickly. The Twi'lek gave him an impish smile. "Was he like me in a good way? Or a bad way? Cause I wanna know if you have some really cool older brother that I could get to know! Who knows, maybe we could be bad influences on the base with each other. Ya know, that's what Leia always accuses me of. Being a bad influence on the younger generation. But how am I to know? Cause I _am_ the "younger generation" she's talking about!"

"Starburst is dead." Klick hobbled away from the man and allowed Sten to help him back to his room. As far as he cared, they were done for the day. Klick sighed a little bit as he struggled to get back to his bed. His entire body hurt. It wasn't fair. Wasn't fair that other clones had gotten to escape before him and they got to live their lives with loved ones. Klick gritted his teeth as he passed a familiar shock of straw blonde hair. He didn't want to feel anymore pain, not for a long while. As much as he wanted to be loved, just like the next clone, he didn't want to be hurt by people unless he had to be. He's learned that the hard way with some of the Imperial officers he had been forced to deal with. Klick tried to bury the sting of rejection deep in his heart, but the pain of it flashed to the surface.

Luke turned around and Klick saw the pain in his heart mirrored in the other's blue eyes. The Jedi looked down some, fear and shame in his face. "I'm sorry," Luke mumbled. "I... shouldn't have hurt you like that. I talked to another clone..."

Klick lurched over and hugged him close. He didn't know what to say about that, but he just hugged his Jedi. It was the least he could do. "Now you know," he mumbled. Now Luke knew his darkest secret. Klick tried not to cry, but it was so hard not too. "Now you know what the Empire did to us." He turned his head some and sighed. "I can't even _look_ at Darth Vader without seeing my brothers be killed."

"Darth Vader is my father," Luke mumbled. He tried to pull away some, but Klick wouldn't let him. Somehow, he didn't care that the man he loved was the son of a Sith Lord. You could not chose your birth, just like you couldn't chose who you loved. "If you don't wanna be anywhere near me over that, I understand. There... there are days when I don't want to be near me, too." He sighed some and looked out into the distance. Klick tried to get them to sit down. What was good for an injured brother was good for a young Jedi. The man needed to be held. "Some days, it's really hard. I can feel him calling to me through the Force. It's so hard for me to resist that."

"Let me help you." Klick soothed his hair back. He wasn't going to let anyone hurt his Jedi. Not if he could help it. Klick growled a little bit as he held the other man close to him. He would protect Luke with everything he had, even if that killed him.  No matter what.


	10. Help Me Help You

Klick had missed sleeping with Sten. Not, you know "sleeping" sleeping with him, but having his little brother pressed into his side, being snug and warm. He'd just missed having the skin to skin contact that he craved. Being "born" from growth tubes and then isolated in little, white tubes growing up tended to make you just a little bit crazy. Or that was what Klick liked to think. The Empire didn't let clone troopers cuddled with each other. They thought that it looked bad, that men bred to be soldiers would want to snuggle with each other like puppies. So it was forbidden and if they caught you, you would be whipped. It was like the Imperials had taken their cues from the Zyggerians, which was actually probably close to the truth.

His leg ached. Klick sighed some and reached down, touching it with the Force like Luke had told him to do. The ache in it eased a little bit, but it was still there and it still throbbed. It just wasn't hurting him and making him want his leg fall off to make the pain stop. That was much better. Klick eased back on the bed and yawned some. He needed to get his rest, but Sten did keep him up. His _ad'ika_ tossed and turned all night. Klick had been kicked more than once. He had the bruises to prove it, too. But it was worth it. He loved having Luke around to help him out, but Sten counted more than any Jedi ever would, no matter how good of a lover he was. Klick stroked his hair softly, thinking about what he was going to do once he was healed up.

The various people he'd served had taught him to pleasure both men and women. Klick didn't like being the bottom, but he was willing to do it. The only thing that he actually drew the line at was bondage. That was a "nope". He'd drop right off and he would hide. Klick sighed some as he traced a scar over his left wrist. He really didn't want to think about how he got it, but there were reasons why he didn't want to be tied up. Sten shifted around some, almost kicking him. Klick didn't want to get up, but if he didn't want to get kicked in the _deece_ , he might have too. The older clone kissed the top of the younger's head as he rolled out of the bed. It was a nice bed, a soft bed, but he was tired of getting kicked.

Klick made a wry face as he got up for a midnight walk. _And to think that I'm grumbling about a bed. A month ago, I was happy to have a moth eaten blanket and a place to curl up. How things can change._

Then again, he wasn't being kicked in the bits every night, so there was that. Klick drew a hand through his dark hair. He... needed to do something. Needed to have a purpose again. That was a clone thing, to worry about not having a purpose. Plenty of clones had been destroyed because they hadn't had the purpose that the overarching Jedi Order had wanted. He started walking through the base, smiling some as his superior senses started taking hold. Unlike born humans, he could see in the dark to a certain extent. It was really just adapted for low light situations, but this base was on a planet with three moons and the entire place was bathed in silver light. Klick quietly walked, just enjoying being the only one awake.

A few droids scurried past him, including what looked like a reworked B1-Battle droid, but they both ignored each other and kept on walking. Klick almost tripped over a small cleaning droid. It beeped angrily at him. Klick saluted the droid and kept on walking. He figured that they wouldn't bother each other. Klick didn't really chose it, but he noticed that he was walking to Luke's rooms. He sighed some, wondering if he could bother the Jedi in the middle of the night. Vhee had never really liked it if he bothered him and it wasn't an offer for free blowjobs. Even tactical news was, at best, received with a grunt and a "get out of here!". Klick and his brothers had learned that one the hard way.

He knocked on the door, trying to see if Luke would turn him away or not. But after a few minutes, Luke padded to the door and opened it. Klick gave him a sheepish look. He sighed some. "I couldn't sleep," Klick murmured. Well, that was half the truth. "You can't sleep, either?"

"It can be like that," Luke sighed. He opened the door and allowed Klick to slip inside. Up close, the Jedi looked... tired. There were great circles under his eyes and his blonde hair was wild. Klick made a tired whine. If Luke was one of his brothers, he would have prescribed a good meal and twelve hours of sleep. But Luke was a Jedi, so he figured that it wasn't going to happen. The blonde Jedi walked to a small sitting area and slumped over one of the tables. "Sometimes, the Force starts singing to you. It doesn't care that you're human and you need to sleep. It just sings to you and you can't get it to stop so you can sleep."

"My _vod'ika_ was kicking my _deece_ all night," Klick admitted. He sighed and shrugged a little bit. "Do you want me to go?"

Luke grumbled and curled up beside him. He settled his head on Klick's shoulders, sighing some. Klick could tell that he'd missed doing this, so he just let it go on. And to be honest, it didn't feel bad. He rather liked it. Luke brushed back some of his blonde hair. "Not really," Luke softly said. "Stay with me? It gets lonely being the only Jedi in the galaxy. At least I can talk to you."

Klick nodded. "I'll keep you warm." That was what you said to a brother when he was feeling like this. And so that was how Klick spent the night, cuddled in the arms of his Jedi. He was starting to get a good feeling about this.


	11. Tme to Live Again

Klick wasn't used to breaking his fast. He was used to getting a few pieces of bread around 0900 hours, but nothing like he was eating right now. Luke sat on the other side of the low table, tucking into his scrambled eggs, flat bread, and some kind of spicy condiment that tasted really sweet and smokey until it started to burn. Klick made a face. How was he supposed to eat his lunch after he ate all of this? And judging from the lack of utensils, he was supposed to dip the bread in the eggs and the whatever the heck it was. Luke called it _sadza_ or something like that. Klick called it the condiment from hell, but that was his own thing. He started tucking in, reminding himself that there were hundreds of clones who would kill to get to eat this.

His heart hurt when he thought of Mauser. The trooper would have _loved_ to eat the same thing that he was sticking his nose up at right now. Klick forced himself to wolf it all down. The stuff burned his tongue, but he gulped down the milk and got up quickly. Now, Klick wasn't going to purge it from himself like some silly Twi'lek girl, but he was going to remind himself not to eat that ever again. Fruit would be better. Maybe fruit and a small bowl of that sweet gruel that they had given him before he was released from the medical bay. Klick grabbed the dishes with the Force and started washing them. It was the least he could do to help the man that had allowed him to move in. Who else but Luke Skywalker would allow a clone trooper to move in with them?

Luke kissed him behind the ears. "You didn't have to do that, you know?" The Jedi gave him a bright smile. "Oh! You're cleared now, so I could take you up in a starfighter if you like it. I don't know if you can fly or not, but I'd like to do that."

"I would like that." Klick caught his hand and kissed it softly. The clone grinned at his Jedi softly and rather liked it when he flushed. Luke blushed easily. Klick had learned that once he'd walked into the bathroom and Luke was singing in the shower. His Jedi could sing pretty well. Now, he could never be one Javul Charn, but he was pretty dang close. Maybe he could start singing if the Jedi thing didn't work. Klick hummed softly as he finished with his job. He dried his hands off and followed the Jedi out through the halls of the base. They had moved the base from one glacier valley to another after Imperial droids had been spotted in the last one. Klick thought they needed to move from the planet entirely, but he wasn't the one in charge.

"You're really going to like this ship!" Luke said. He grinned happily and squeezed Klick's hand. Klick grinned back. "It's not the fanciest ship, but it's fast! It's really fast! Boba got it for me from some bounty hunter who bit the dust. It's an old Z-6 headhunter and it even has a hyperdrive! So we could go anywhere for a day trip if you would like."

"I would like to go to Canto Bight," Klick admitted. He had a thing for fancy planets, he understood. Just like he had a thing for shy, blonde Jedi who saved his life. No, he did not care that he was grinning like a loon as he walked through the base. They stopped in front of an old ship in the hangar. It was small and slender, made for speed, but it's hide was covered in dents and dings. There weren't any cracks in it, but it was clearly an old ship and it showed that. Klick touched the cool metal quietly. This... was an old ship. Strong, too. Luke clearly loved it and Klick tried to ignore the nose art of himself with a lightsaber that now decorated it. He wondered just who had decided to place that there. "Nice paint job, by the way."

"It was Sten's idea. He thought that you would like it. He's on the other side, by the way."

Klick choked back the laugh. Trust his _vod'ika_ to get himself immortalized in the nose art of a bounty hunter's ship. Klick found the loading ramp and he keyed in the code. Inside, the ship was sparse. It was just a small holding bay, the cockpit, and a sitting area. All the same gunmetal grey and with the same metal floorplates. This was a working ship, not a pleasure cruiser, and it showed. Klick nodded some. This felt like an old troop transporter, but without the stench of sick and fear. It looked like a nice ship and he rather liked it. He let Luke take the steering yoke and he took co-pilot. They were only going to take a quick spin around the planet, maybe try out the thrusters some.

They weren't looking for trouble, but the universe had other ideas.

No sooner had they left the shelter of their little valley then the Imperial needlenoses came flying from behind a ridge and started shooting at them. Luke screamed in fear. He yanked hard to port, trying to get them out of the way. He had no idea what was going on. Klick screamed a curse. He found the guns and pulled them online, but going from the blinking meter, it was going to take a little bit. Luke tried to get away from them, but something grabbed their little ship and started dragging them back. Luke floored it. Or, rather, he tried to do it. The engines cut off seconds after he punched them and the entire ship went dead. The guns went limp in Klick's hands.

Seconds later, the gangplank was forced up and stormtroopers flooded the ship. Someone grabbed Klick and put a blaster to his head. The clone froze. Luke looked like he was about to go for his lightsaber, but someone kicked him in the gut. The man cried out. He collapsed in a heap, clutching his belly. Klick tried to get away, but the gun slammed into his ear. He fell down, ears ringing. The man gasped in pain and tried to shake his head. Someone almost kicked him. Blood was welling up over his ear and he had no idea what to do next. He gasped for breath. Klick tried to reach for the Force, but there was nothing he could do. He was cuffed quickly. Luke was cuffed, too, and a collar was slammed around his neck.

Klick's eyes widened. That was a Force null collar, just like his Master had started to create. And then Klick knew nothing more as his neck was pricked and he was sedated.


	12. Imperial Captives

Klick woke up with a splitting headache.

The man raised his head some, trying to take stock of where he was. Being a clone trooper, he had woken up in some pretty strange places before. Like that one time he'd gone out to a bar with Ross and woke up in a stripper's apartment with his hands tied to the headboard and a raging hangover. Or that one time he'd woken up with Mauser sucking his _deece_. Or that one time he took up Fives' offer to go visit 79's. That wasn't a good idea, by the way. If you were looking for a seedy dive bar, there were thousands of other ones on Coruscant proper that didn't cater to Twi'lek prostitutes. Then again, 79's also gave free beer to the clone troopers, so that might have been why Fives went there.

Klick groaned softly and tried to rub his eyes. His hands weren't shackled, which was good, so he figured that nothing too terrible had happened. Yeah, so they were in the brig of a starship. And yeah, it looked like they were dealing with the Empire. And to be honest, that was never a good thing, but Klick had worked for Lord Shadowspawn for quite a long time. He knew what it was like to deal with a crazy Sith. As far as he knew, Lord Vader didn't go around torturing people. He also didn't like to imprison them with meltmassif so they would starve to death or be eaten alive by various cave creatures. Klick could deal with Lord Vader. Now the only issue was going to be the collar on his neck, but that was easy to get off.

He ran a thumb over the interface. It looked like a common fingerprint type, which meant that he needed some tape and some hairspray or some talcum powder and a latex bandage to get off. Or he could just bribe the arresting officer with some old fashioned sexual pleasure, though he figured Luke wouldn't like that very much. Klick sighed softly. His Jedi was going to learn what he was sooner rather than later. Those _vode_ of his never could keep their mouths shut. Klick got to his feet and paced the narrow cell. He couldn't see much. Just the standard rack with the harder than rock mattress. A refresher that slid in and out of the wall. A sink. And what looked like a slot for food. No Luke, but Klick figured they hadn't taken him very far.

What was the going rate on Jedi these days? Klick didn't know. He didn't bother to keep up with such things. He'd been too focused on pirating holodramas and telling his brothers stories of the Jedi to really keep up with them. Shadowspawn wouldn't have liked it if he knew that his troopers were looking up things on the Jedi Knights of old. And okay, some of them had been porn (and bad porn, at that), but most of them were telling stories of the Rebellion and the proud Jedi at the head of it. Luke Skywalker wasn't what the dramas said he was. He was a kind man. A gentle man. Someone that you could love and hold. Not the crazy Jedi Warrior that the film makers seemed to think that he was. Luke Skywalker was the stuff dreams were made of.

He bit his bottom lip. Klick sat down on the bed and decided to wait. He needed to get out of here, but they were going to have too make some sort of plan. The trooper sighed softly. He had no real idea what he was supposed to do right now. Talk to the Imperials? Try to reason with them? Or ask if they were going to be charged? Was it even a crime to _be_ a Jedi? Yeah, he'd heard that they went after Ferus Olin and his husband, but that was after they'd tried to meddle with the Death Star plans. That was the same Death Star that got destroyed, but that was beside the point. As far as Klick knew, Luke wasn't involved with that. He was just a Jedi. He just did Jedi things and that seemed to include training clone troopers.

The cell door opened and a bitter looking man glared down at the trooper. Klick gave him a half smile. He wasn't quite sure what was about to go down. This could either go very well or very bad. Now, he didn't see a torture droid, but that didn't mean that there wasn't something there. Klick's belly turned. He thought of his own interrogations on prisoners. How easy it was to slip a truth serum into someone who didn't expect one. Klick took a deep breath. He needed to go on and get this over with.

"Do you know why you're here, trooper?" The man turned his head. "My name is Commander Mathieu. As far as I know, you are GC-1000. AKA Klick. Grand Air Marshal Klick, if we're going to go by your rank."

"As far as I know, the only thing we did wrong was take a joyride," Klick shrugged. He didn't quite care that he was wearing bright yellow prison duds. He was just going to give as good as he got. "Course, my boyfriend and I got the ship from a bounty hunter, so I don't know if it's legal or not. As far as I know, he bought it legit, but I wouldn't put it past him to give Luke a hot ship. Not that he would know." He leaned back some and shrugged.

Mathieu rubbed his face. "That wasn't the answer I was looking for."

"Well, it's the truth and I'm not one to lie." No, that impulse had been beaten out of him on Kamino, but this wasn't the time to drag up that little bit of trama. Klick needed to keep his cool. The best way to deal with this guy was to pretend that nothing was going to get to him.

"You are both under arrest for treason," Mathieu carefully said. "Not for using the Force, but for using the Force directly aide and abet members of this so-called "Rebellion", which is really nothing more than a group of armed terrorists. Now, old Soliel was praised for crushing their terrorists, but we're getting all sorts of media backlash. It's telling, isn't it?"

Klick just shrugged. "Whatever you say, Commander." He might have looked calm on the outside, but inside he was screaming. What if they killed him and Luke? What was he supposed to do then? He had to protect his Jedi... but how? How could he go about it this time? On the outside, Klick just smiled and tried to slip a little bit of the Force under his collar. He had a plan, but it was a crazy one. It was also the only plan they had.


	13. Making a Deal

Klick had dealt with far more jerks than he wanted to think about. That was a fact of life if you came from Kamino. So he was going to go into this like you did when you were dealing with a particularly nasty tempered general. He'd done that a few times. He'd walked into a meeting with Krennic and came out with lashes. He got the feeling that he might not get whipped from this, but he might get tossed around a little bit. He'd heard that Lord Vader was known for killing those who didn't please him. So he needed to make sure that he didn't get killed. He rubbed his face as best he could with his cuffed hands. What he wouldn't give to be sharing a can on tomato soup with Luke right now. The roaring fire part was optional. The soup and Luke _weren't_.

There was a young Korunnai Sith right beside him. The young man gave him a little bit of a look, like he didn't quite understand what was going on. Klick didn't know much about the Korunnai, but he did know that they lived on they lived on a very tropical planet that had a toxic cloudsea, which was a very rare geological anomaly. They were pretty much human, except that they were a little harder to kill and constant exposure to stellar radiation left them almost always Force sensitive. They were also very dark and revered for their wisdom when it came to the Force and their abilities with natural medication. It was said that Empire hadn't even sent stormtroopers down there because they needed the trade from it.

"What are you looking at?" Klick hissed. He didn't quite know what he was going to do with this. They only had a little bit left in the lift ride. He didn't want to get stuck in a long, boring conversation about Haruun Kal and all the trade routes. He was just tired and all he wanted to do was get this over with. The clone trooper rested his head back. He really needed a drink or two, but this was going to get him what he wanted too. So he followed the stormtroopers and tried to think about Mandalore. He wanted to go there. He wanted to take Luke there. They would have a good vacation, he would try to figure out what to do with his life, and that would make his life that much better. Having the Force _sucked_ at times.

The Korunnai shrugged some. "I've just never seen a stormtrooper with the Force before. We have those Starkiller clones, yes, but never any like you. So you're weird and I would love to take you apart and see what makes you tick."

What was it with the Sith and taking people apart? He swore under his breath as he walked through the Star Destroyer. He still didn't see Luke nor could he feel anything else. This collar was really making it hard for him. It was strange, how he could get used too something and then get upset when it was taken away from him. There was a time when he would have killed to wear a collar like he was wearing right now. He didn't even try to struggle. It would just end badly for him. So he took a deep breath and he walked through the hallway. The Star Destroyer looked like what it was, a soulless killing machine, but it was the dozens of armored troopers that were walking around. At least the clones had been able to decorate their armor.

Of course, Lord Vader was in some sort of room at the end of the bridge. They passed by all the tech pits and Klick sorely regretted that he couldn't get out of these cuffs and tap in the kill codes. He was willing to bet that no one had bothered to change the codes in the past twenty years. That was just the way things worked in this crappy little town. He hated the Empire. He hated them as much as or more than he hated the GAR. He'd heard there was a soldier once, one called Cassian, who had started a drinking game when you took a shot every time people started quoting fake things from the holonet about the Republic. Klick rolled his eyes some. This was going to be fun.

"So this is what Lord Shadowspawn did with the Empire's gift." Lord Vader swept down from where he was sitting and gave Klick a good look. Klick squirmed some. The Korunnai straightened himself up just a little more. Klick wondered if this guy wanted to be the next apprentice. Well, he was willing to swap with him if he wanted too. "Brinnu, you have done very well. Go down to our sparring room and tell Lord Ram that you will be reporting to train as his new apprentice and your new name will be Darth Xuthi."

Well then. That was going to be a new one on him. He didn't know that things could go by that fast. Lord Shadowspawn had liked his red tape, so he was used to dealing with a lot of contracts and some trial periods. So Klick was more than a little surprised.

The newly named Sith bowed out and went racing for wherever he was supposed to go. Klick looked up at the older man, trying to gauge what was going on behind the mask. There were those who said Lord Vader was just General Grevious with some new stuff. There were others that said he was a creation of Doctor Aphra. Still others said he was a former Jedi Knight. Klic had no idea who he was supposed to be, but he figured that the Jedi Knight one was the least likely things to have actually happen. Jedi didn't fall. They would rather die than actually do something like fall. t was just so common and the Jedi seemed to believe that they were so much better than all of the others.

"So what do you want from me?" Klick asked. He gave the Sith a long look. "I don't have all day and I'd rather go back to my joyride with my boyfriend, thank you very much." He smirked a little at the last one. He was getting the idea that Lord Vader wasn't quite sure what he was going to do with his new clone trooper. Well, it was far better than taking him apart. Klick would take a cell over death and destruction any day of the week.

"I need to know the details of Lord Shadowspawns' project," Vader replied. He sat down, looking at the other man through that freaky helmet of his. Klick shivered some. He didn't like it very much. "Since he refuses to tell me what he needs and he doesn't respect the Emperor enough to divulge his projects."

Klick shrugged. "I have no idea. It's like your Starkiller clones? Maybe? But I guess that old clone troopers are just cheaper." That was what he figured, anyways. He had no idea what else to say. A clone trooper could just be grown in a tube and decanted fully grown. A Starkiller clone couldn't be done that way. They had to be aged up and even that was hit or miss. So he sighed a little bit and just waited. Then Klick got an idea. He grinned and leaned forwards. "You know what? I'll tell you what I know if you give me back my Luke."

Vader looked him over. "You have a deal."

As Klick and Vader shook on it, Klick couldn't help but feel he was making a deal with the devil.


	14. Dealing With the Devil

Klick didn't mind telling Lord Vader what Lord Shadowspawn had been getting up to. It wasn't like he had any loyalty to the man. Shadowspawn had hurt him and tortured him more than once. All the times he'd been chained up and experimented on. All the blood they had taken from him. The times he'd been milked for his seed so they could see just why he was infertile. Klick was pretty sure it was because he'd been exposed to a lot of radiation on Genosis. There had been a strike team that attacked one of the droid factories. No one bothered to tell the troopers that those droids used unshielded nuclear thermals to process the droid cores. And that was why a certain sect of older troopers lost almost all their fertility.

He could have told them that without all the pain and humiliation. There were times when Klick wondered if he was tortured just because a few of the man's Acolytes were sadists. They were some weird things, too. Tall creatures draped with blood red robes and embroidered with crystals that shone in the Force. Klick couldn't look at those robes without getting a headache. He didn't like it, not one bit. The trooper was more than willing to walk beside Lord Vader if it meant that he wasn't washing Acolyte robes. Obsidian might have amplified the Dark Side of the Force, but it wasn't _nearly_ as strong as those robes. Those robes were a little bit on the evil side, but that was the truth of it.

Vader stopped them in front of a massive plexi-steel window. Klick got the idea. He stopped in front of the sprawling, massive window and looked into the darkness of space. Klick got the little bit of subliminal messaging. Vader could chuck him right out there and no one would bat the eye. The Sith turned to him. "What projects are Lord Shadowspawn working on? Anything that might threaten the foundation of the Empire?"

"For all I know, he's looking for a way to create midi-chlorians," Klick replied. He gripped the cool steel bars and tried not to get freaked out. Luke was one thing. He had a warm, sweet presence in the Force. Like a nice, downy bed that made you curl up in it all day. Vader... was something different. Like the type of swords that bled when you washed them. Metal always absorbed the blood it was doused with. Even thousands of years later. There was a reason why some space stations were stained dark red and smelled like raw meat. Klick had even been on a few of them. They were seedy, nasty places. Places on the edges of known space and frequented by the worst of the worst. "I really don't know."

"Then tell me what he was doing with _you_." Vader looked at him with that creepy helm of his. Klick shuddered some. He didn't like that thing and wished that he could see the man's actual face. It wasn't that bad, was it? But Klick didn't know why he was wearing that crazy thing. Even clone troopers got tired of wearing their helms. Maybe he was badly injured and that was why he needed the thing. Or he was just an edgelord like all the other Sith and that was why he did it. Lord Shadowspawn had styled himself like the darke gods of old from his homeworld. Klick was starting to think that being just a bit Extra™ was what the Sith did. He wouldn't be surprised if it was.

"He wanted to make cheap versions of the Starkiller clones," Klick replied. He watched the cold darkness of space and tried not to think about him dying out there. That wouldn't be a nice way to go. He'd heard about the space walk troopers and how one of those got the air sucked from his lungs. He never quite healed right and he had quite the cough years after. "From what I understand, and take it for what it's worth, he was killing too many of his Starkiller clones and he never could _quite_ get the aging process to work right. And the ones that he could get to age right... they were as wild as the Danine bucks. I heard one of them killed a bunch of their handlers because they had a bad hair day."

Vader turned his head. "That was what I thought he was doing. If he would actually care for his property..."

"Yeah, talk to me about it," Klick muttered. "If he wouldn't starve us, we wouldn't die and we might actually stay around instead of jumping ship." Vader jerked around to look at him. Klick figured that he was in for the penny, he might as well be in for the pound. Whatever that meant. "Yeah, a lot of troopers ran off. It's like one of those open secret things? We'd look the other way if a brother was trying to get free. A Starkiller clone? Not a chance. Those things are mad." And they were. Hunched over, shriveled things with empty dark eyes and matted hair. They looked like something out of your darkest nightmare. Klick had shot a few of them and maybe that wasn't the best thing to tell Lord Vader.

It was just a thought.

"That man is too dangerous to keep around," Vader replied. The man groaned softly and rubbed his face. Or, rather, his helmet. Klick really didn't like that thing. It looked like something that the old ones had dragged in because some child thought it looked cool. Like the current fascination with Lord Revan and the crossguard he had with his lightsaber. "If he is losing his property like you say he is, then he needs to be taken care of. And sooner, rather than later."

Klick rolled his eyes and turned around. "Can I get my Luke now? As far as I know, we haven't committed any crimes. It's actually illegal for you to hold Imperial citizens without a just cause." That was how they arrested that one commander.

"I suppose so," Vader muttered. He turned around and beckoned Klick after him. Klick followed. He didn't like the feeling about this, but what else could he do? Sometimes the devil was the only broker you had.


	15. Reunion

Klick was ready to get his Luke back, thank you very much. He was much more patience than Lord Shadowspawn and he was a thousand percent better than Aeona Cantor. Which meant that he needed to look into both of them. How were they doing? They did help the other clones out when they were trying to escape. That wasn't something that Klick could just let go, either. Few natural borns would lower themselves to help a clonetrooper out. And those that did? Well, some of them were pretty nasty and all they were in it for was the chance of sex. Klick had hit one or two of them once. Some of them did mean well, but those happy few were vastly outnumbered by the idiots among them.

He followed Vader closely and held his head high. He wasn't some Slick or Dogma, being herded off to be destroyed. No, he was a free man and he was going to be treated as such. He'd stolen his freedom. Taken everything back that had been taken from him. Klick set his jaw as he passed a sneering body of natural borne troopers. He missed the days of having the _vode_ staff big ships like this. Had they not been as good as the others? Was that why so many of his navy brothers had been destroyed? Some had been sold, but no many had been killed. In his darker moments, he had blamed that _di'kut_ Chaabar for what he'd done. After he killed that officer with a spanner wrench, half of his batch had been destroyed.

One of those killed had been Klick's lover. He missed Kileo all these years later. Maybe he saw a little of that man in Luke and that was why he liked the man so much. It was like he got to hold Kileo just a little bit longer.

Klick's boots rang on the metal catwalk as he followed. He held his head high, set his jaw. He wasn't letting these guys beat him down. He was tired of taking it from them. He hadn't told Lord Vader everything. When dealing with the Sith, it was always better to parcel out information in little pieces rather than toss everything in their laps. He had learned that the hard way and had the scars to prove it. The Force coiled around him. Klick had to force himself to keep the power under wraps. He was going to do something he regretted if he lost it right now. Like get his Luke killed. He could take this for a few more minutes if that meant his Luke was safe. He just smiled to himself. He could take them.

He needed a lightsaber. Maybe he could get one from Luke, after they got through this. Vader swept ahead in front of him, every inch the Imperial commander. He _almost_ made Klick enlist. Almost, because if he did enlist, he wouldn't be allowed to be with Luke. That was the deal breaker for him, too. Not being allowed to be with his Luke. Klick wasn't lying when he said he would do anything for that Jedi. The iron grey walls seemed to close in on him as they went deeper into the ship. Just how big was this monolith?! The Republic hadn't needed ships as large as this to take worlds like Umbara and Felucia! And those had been absolute hell to fight, too. Klick still shuddered to think of the beasts he had killed there.

They made their way to the last lift. Klick couldn't see many escape routes and the chill of space started to invade his bones. He didn't like it. But Klick forced himself to keep on. He had to get Luke out of here. What if Vader was going to use him the same way Klick had been used? He couldn't allow that to happen! So he gritted his teeth and he tried to count support beams as the lift went down. It was an old calming technique. Klick shook his head as he watched them go lower. This deep in the ship didn't need to have an escape route. No one cared about the prisoners or the troops on the shit list. On the off chance that a CO wound up down here during a battle, they didn't need to be in command anyways.

"You got a good way to get up again?" Klick asked. He didn't like breaking the silence, but that helmet and the breathing was starting to creep him out a little. He could only credit his training that he wasn't freaking out. That and the fact that he was bred on Kamino. There, you got used to tight spaces and scary things, or you went mad. Those who went mad got destroyed. Klick looked around. "You seem to be having a rebel problem. Now, I'm no Rebel, but if I was, and if I had a mole in your system, this would be the time I started blasting the hell out of your ships." He shrugged. "I mean, the great Lord Vader going down to the bowels of a ship? What better odds could you have?"

"Do you always talk like this?" Vader asked. "This inane chatter, that could be avoided?"

Klick swallowed. "Nervous tick, sir. Used to do it with my brothers. Every time we got nervous, we started talking." He shrugged at the Sith Lord and breathed a sigh of relief as they started slowing down. "It's an old habit. Glad I kept it, because that means I get to talk down every dock master from his fees." Okay, so he'd talked one Master into a three credit fee instead of five, but that counted. Right? Didn't it count? He tapped his foot and started out the door as soon as it opened up. He was getting out of here as soon as he could. They didn't have many down here. A few troopers guarding what looked like a human and a Nautolan pirate, some slavers, and his Luke. His Luke was sitting in the transperisteel cube, meditating.

Lord Vader walked over to the lead trooper and said something. Klick didn't really care what. All he cared about was getting his Jedi back. Luke was calm as they lead him out. Then when they took off the binders, he ran over to Klick and all but jumped in his arms. Klick didn't care what that did to his back and arms. He caught Luke and spun him around, peppering his face with kisses. Whatever else happened, he had Luke. That was all that mattered.


	16. Getting Luke Back

Klick shuddered as he followed Vader down the corridor. Everything had been painted in gunmetal grey and rivets were stuck all over the place. Great rust stains streaked all down the walls. Even more condensation pooled on the metal walls and on the slick floor. The walls of the cells were transperisteel that could be cleared with the touch of a button. Klick thought he could see shadows of men and bunks. It was so cold down here that he could see his breath. The emergency lights overhead were flickering, like they were on their last legs. Sharp shadows filled the corridor. Sometimes Klick thought he could see things moving in the shadows and he hoped those were just figments of his imagination.

"I hope he's warm enough," Klick murmured softly. He didn't know what he'd do if the Jedi was hurt that badly. But he squared his shoulders and walked on. He was ready to get out of here. They needed to get that ship of theirs and hurry home. Klick could worn the Jedi and the Alliance. If it saved his brothers, Klick was willing to do it. He didn't say anything as they walked down to the end of the row. Vader tapped the glass and Klick watched as the clouds vanished. He could see Luke. The Jedi had been wrapped up, warmly, in several blankets. His head was thrown up and Klick could see the beginning of a black eye. Klick bit his bottom lip. He didn't like this. It looked like his Jedi was hurt, and badly.

"What did you do to him?" Klick whispered. He turned to look at the Sith, his hazel eyes wide. What else could he do? He couldn't fight his way out of here. This entire place made a bottleneck, with one way in and one way out. Besides that, Klick had barely any training. He didn't think that he could defeat Lord Vader. Not unless the man was drunk. Or stoned. Or both. Yet, Klick didn't think that the Sith would do such a thing. Klick shook his head as Vader didn't even bother to answer him. The Sith put his hand on a plate. The big door hissed open and Luke sprang up. Klick didn't say anything and he hid the Force as best he could. The last clone who could use the Force had been named Glitch. _That_ clone was destroyed when the Jedi found out.

"We did nothing. The young Jedi simply struggled with the stormtroopers." Vader turned to look at him. Klick cringed down, wishing that he hadn't said anything. As much as he hated Hoth, he just wished that they could get their and fast. Vader swept into the small cell and grabbed Luke up. The young Jedi gasped, fear flashing in his blue eyes. How much training had Luke had? Did he know how to get out of a Force hold like that? Klick had seen Lord Shadowspawn do something like that before. He didn't think that Luke knew how to do such a thing. Vader turned to look at him again. There was just something dark in him, something that had been twisted beyond all recognition.

"I'm alright," Luke murmured. He surged over to Klick and pressed a kiss to his cheek. Klick would have whooped if he'd been able to do that. But instead, they had to keep things calm. They had to act like there was nothing there before they got out of here. Klick took his hand and squeezed, hoping that Luke would understand. Vader made a strangled sound and swooped out of the area. Luke and Klick followed him quickly. There were stormtroopers all behind them. Klick didn't like that. He thought that they might kill him. Luke would be alright. The young Jedi could do whatever he needed to do. It was Klick who was the weak link. Clone troopers were not made to be Jedi.

Luke brushed a hand on his cheek as they hurried through the brig. "Are you okay? I... I was very worried about you. I... I thought they would have taken you away from me. Or even given you back to Lord Shadowspawn."

"That Sith is dead," Klick rasped. He didn't care that others were watching. He just held Luke's hand, swallowing softly. He didn't want to do anything but kiss his Jedi and make him senseless with pleasure. He'd done that a few times with others, but he had never done it with anyone he cared about. Kileo hadn't been able to do anything like that. They had been in two different branches and the Jedi didn't care to keep clones together. He squeezed Luke's hand as they got up on the lift. They were almost out of here. They just had to get their ship, make sure it wasn't bugged, and hightail it back home. Or, they could ditch the Headhunter and get a new ship.

Luke had Leia's credit card and enough funds to get a ship after they traded an older ship for something newer and much more fun to fly. Klick just said nothing as they were taken through all the corridors of this big ship. Droids scurried under his feet. Klick almost tripped over a few mouse droids. A few older droids, like the Clone Wars types, were posted like guards. Stormtroopers walked all over the place. Some of them wore brilliant black robes. Others were dressed in crimson armor. Most of them were wearing white, though. No one had the brilliant painted armor that the clones had. Klick did want some Mandalorian armor, though. He wondered if Boba could get him some.

"I will expect to receive reports about Sith activity whenever you find it," Vader smoothly said. He turned around, the cape flaring out like some dramatic hero in a holo-drama. "I know you know some of them, trooper. You knew enough about Lord Shadowspawn to give me warning of him. I expect to have reports on him and any others."

"One problem with that," Klick replied. He got Luke into the smaller ship and grinned up at him. Luke knew that Klick could handle himself. Klick had dealt with himself many times over the years. Klick glanced up at Luke. "Shadowspawn is dead. Luke and I kinda killed him. Even a Sith is gonna die when you drop half his palace on his head!"

Vader cleared his throat. "I will expect reports. If I don't get them..."

"Yeah, I know." Klick saluted him and slipped into the small hatch of the ship. Vader walked away from him. There was something in his step that made Klick shuddered. He just hoped that Vader understood that he would get a bunch of big, fat nothings unless Klick really hit the pay dirt. But now... they were going home. Klick would run a complete bug scan on this ship and then he was going to go home. Klick glanced over at Luke as soon as they were clear of that big ship. They were going home. They were _finally_ going home.

Klick didn't even know how to feel about this.


	17. Coming Home

Klick didn't trust these Imperials as far as he could throw them. They needed to get out of here, but that was looking to be harder than he thought. He watched them as he was ushered off the big ship, keeping Luke in front of him at all times. The young Jedi seemed to understand that he was in danger here, so he was letting Klick take the lead. Thank the gods that no one had found Luke's lightsaber. That would have gotten them arrested for sure. The clone made very sure to keep his thoughts calm and neutral. They had that old ship of theirs. They needed to tell the Rebellion as soon as they could that Hoth was compromised. Klick didn't want to lose what little goodwill he had with these people.

Sten and his brothers depended on that to survive. Klick wasn't going to throw away their chance just because he was a fool and he didn't like someone. And as much as he loved that nose art, it was going to have to go. He was pretty sure that lightsabers weren't exactly allowed in any major forms of art. At least not anymore. Klick didn't say anything as they exited the ship. He did notice the tracker someone had clamped to the headhunter's hull and gave it a quick but brutal kick to dislodge it. After all, they were going to hit some interstellar turbulence. The Empire should have known better than to clip a tracker to the outside of a ship. Klick also resolved to give the thing a good virus sweep as soon as they were alone.

Luke swayed as they got up in the ship. Klick noticed this and he also noticed how wide and hollow his eyes were. The clone pulled Luke close to him, finally stashing him in the bunk area before taking the ship out the ion curtain and into hyperspace. It looked like Leia had texted him several times, asking where they were, but Klick had better things to worry about. He bit his bottom lip. They needed to be careful, but he could feel _something_ trying to get in the ship. He looked around, making sure to keep Luke out of his line of sight. There was something cold in this ship and it was starting to make him cold and hard. Klick closed his eyes. He had to keep strong, had to ignore what felt like cold trails of slime going down his back.

 _Shadowspawn was here_. Klick didn't know how he knew that, but he did. He could feel the icy coldness of the man, smell the slight acrid stench that came from him just being there. Klick froze up, trying to keep from keening in fear. That had to be what had hurt Luke. First being near Lord Vader and finally the asshole known as Shadowspawn. He was there. He was going to mess something up or even kill them. Klick gripped the seat hard and just prayed. There was nothing he could do. He could feel the sticky, oily filth wrapping around his body, whispering the Shadowspawn wasn't done with him yet. That there was still so much more to be done here. Klick almost keened his fear.

' _You thought you got away_ ,' the Sith murmured in his ear. Klick could see him now: a formless black thing with only golden slits where his eyes should have been. ' _You really thought you could run away and I could never find you. Tell me, boy, did you ever factor in the meltmassif that I doused you in? It's been singing to me. Telling me where you are and what you've been doing. Good job on snaring the Jedi, by the way. If I had known he liked clones, I would have sent you in there naked_.'

"Go away!" Klick snapped. He doubled over, fighting what was threatening to rise up in him. The things Shadowspawn had put in his body were starting to wake up now. They were hideous things. Things that made him scream. Klick watched in horror as a fine layer of black ooze erupted through his skin. Dimly, he was aware that he was screaming in agony. He fell to the ground, thrashing around, as more and more of the stuff came out. "What did I do to you?!"

' _You ran away_ ,' Shadowspawn replied. ' _You went with the Jedi instead of bringing him back to me. Your life belongs to me, trooper_.'

"Go to hell," Klick hissed. He lay there, gasping and panting from the pain. It hurt. So much. He'd never hurt this much before. Some of the foul, black tar bubbled from is mouth and he gagged from his. His mind was filled with whispers, demands from the Sith to his slave. Klick called to the Force. He begged whatever was listening that he not fall to this, that he have the strength to claw his way out of the mire. The black climbed up his body, shredding his clothes. Like the first time he'd been with a man, his mind supplied. Klick shoved that memory away. He clawed at the stuff, tried to rip it off. It bit and burned, making the trooper scream. He could feel Luke's terror through their bond, but there was nothing the Jedi could do.

The black climbed up his body, coating his tawny skin in a layer of something that burned and stung. He could hear Shadowspawn laughing as he screamed. He clawed for something, anything, that might keep this from coming over his head. The Sith told him to lie down and take it, that he was nothing and he should just let his body be used this way. Klick refused it. He watched as the stuff struggled, as it failed to climb that much farther up his body. Shadowspawn wanted Luke. He wasn't going to get Luke. Not while Klick had breath left in his body. He gritted his teeth, trying to ignore the meltmassif that bubbled from his body. There could only be so much one body held. He hoped.

The Sith stood over him, watching as the trooper struggled and screamed. He started to become more aware. His body went from being like a ghost to almost being there. He lay his cool hands on Klick's head and tried to shove his mind down. Klick refused. He refused as the vessels in his eyes broke, as he wept tears of blood and tar. He refused as his body was burnt by the stuff and as Shadowspawn tortured him with lightning. If he went down, Klick knew he might not ever wake up. Without knowing what he was doing, he clung to the light. He wrapped that around himself, begging that whatever Force ghost lived there would come and help him out.

He couldn't die. He couldn't betray Luke.

Shadowspawn did something with his hands and the last thing Klick knew was a wave of black. His screams were the last thing he heard and pain was all he knew until there was nothing left. Just a husk of the man who'd once been Klick. The man was buried deep and Shadowspawn had a brand new shell to try out while his old one hung in punishment.


End file.
